International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
ARM Controller Based Earthquake & Flood Detection and Alert
System (EFDAS)
A.R.Jadhav1, Gaurav.S.Gaikwad2, Amol.B.Chavan3, Kavaljeet.K.Tivale4,
Aniket.D.Patil5
Department of Electronics Engineering.
D.Y. Patil Collage of Engineering and Technology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India.
Abstract: Disasters like earthquakes, floods can cause significant damage to the population nearby. Most
of the time, people in affected area do not take any precautions as they are not aware of the occurrence of
disaster. The system focuses on monitoring water level & earth vibrations via sensors, & generates alert
signal when water level or level of earth vibrations crosses a threshold. System gives alert message to the
concerned authorities through their mobile phones (SMS) and to the local people, nearby the river side. The
module can also display real time status of water level on display.
Keywords: ARM7 LPC2148, MEMS, GSM, water level sensor.
I. INTRODUCTION
Natural disasters like earthquake and flood are worldwide phenomena. Earthquake is a sudden shaking
of the earth surface because of the strong movements within the earth's crust which causes great destruction. A
huge energy gets released and travels through rocks as waves, which causes vibrations and shaking of the earth
surface. The word earthquake reveals its meaning very clearly (earth means ground or soil and quake means
shake or tremble). From 29th July 2010 to 24th April 2012, over 26000 earthquakes were recorded by various
agencies [1]. Since 1900, over 7000+ damaging earthquakes occurred worldwide [2]. The flood is one of the
most destructive disasters in the world, causing tremendous structural, economic, environmental and most
importantly human beings losses. In a single year, 2015, floods in Asia-pacific region caused 1863 deaths where
almost 21.5 million peoples were affected and economic damage around 11.5 billion (USD) has been done [3].
As the earthquakes and floods cause significant damage to our society, so the system proposes cost effective and
efficient design. The system focuses on monitoring water level & earth vibrations via sensors. It generates alert
signal when water level or level of their mobile phones. Also the warning is sent to people using earth vibrations
crosses a threshold. Alert message is in the form of SMS is sent to the concerned authorities and the local people
through siren.
II. EARTHQUAKE DETECTION PROBLEMS
The problem for detecting an earthquake is the incapable early warning or alert systems. In 1993 as the
earthquake struck in the middle of night at Killari, Latur, due to the absence of any kind of alarm system around
10,000 people died and 30,000 were injured [4]. In India there are only two places Delhi and Uttarakhand has
successfully implemented the early earthquake alarm system which is developed by Indo-German companies
who claims that the system can gives warning up to 10 seconds earlier [5]. But this early warning time is totally
depends on the distance between epicenter and sensors of the system.
III. FLOOD DETECTION PROBLEMS
Flood is one of the most dangerous disaster due to which many people dies every year worldwide. In
1953 coastal floods killed 1835 people in the Netherlands and 313 people in the United Kingdom [6]. Flood
detection is not easy as it doesn‟t depends on the specific area, heavy rain at one place can flood the area far
away from it. As it is not depends on weather of one place, it is important to monitor parameters in wide area.
| Vol. 03 | Issue 04 | 2017 | 67 |
International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
IV. PREVIOUS WORK IN EARTHQUAKE DETECTION
German company named „Secty Electronics‟ had developed alarm system named as, “lifePatron:
Earthquake warning and security management system”. This system has been already implemented and working
in 25 countries. Some systems are working based on fact that speed of advance electronic communications which
is much faster relative to those of seismic waves. The available warning time increases from few seconds to tens
of seconds with distance from the epicenter [7]. Most of the designed systems uses MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Sensor) accelerometer as it can sense very small vibrations very precisely [8].
Figure 1: MEMS Sensor
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is the integration of mechanical elements, sensors,
actuators, and electronics on common silicon substrate through micro fabrication technology. MEMS uses a
technology where number of components are integrated that sense and control environmental parameters.
MEMS sensors are power efficient and more sensitive to input parameters compared to other sensors. MEMS is
used as vibration sensor to detect earthquake vibrations and convert it into electric signal (voltage) [9].
V. PREVIOUS WORK IN FLOOD DETECTION
An early flood warning system developed by Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated
Mountain Development in collaboration with Assam-based NGO Aaranyak, makes use of simple electronic
sensors to produce flood warning signals through wireless technology for sending flood warning messages to
government agencies [11].
VI. SYSTEM DESIGN MODEL
Microcontroller gets the data from sensor and compares current value and threshold value. If current
value crosses threshold value then it sends signal to GSM module and it will turn on buzzer. In this design model
ARM LPC2148 microcontroller is used. The LPC2148 microcontrollers are based on a 16-bit/32-bit
ARM7TDMI with real-time emulation and embedded support. ARM7 LPC2148 32 bit, RISC microcontroller. It
has inbuilt ADC & DAC with 40kB on chip SRAM and 512kB flash memory. A 128-bit wide memory interface
and unique accelerator architecture enable 32-bit code execution at the maximum clock rate. It has Low power
Real-Time Clock (RTC) with independent power and 32 kHz clock input.
For detecting the earthquake MEMS accelerometer is used in this design model. MEMS sensors are
power efficient and more sensitive to input parameters compared to other sensors. MEMS is used as vibration
sensor to detect earthquake vibrations and convert it into electric signal (voltage). Water level sensor is used to
detect the flood i.e., water level. Sensor includes reed float sensors switch because of its reliability.
In this design model GSM SIM300 is used to send SMS to the concerned government authorities and
local people. Display is used to provide continuous information about water level.
| Vol. 03 | Issue 04 | 2017 | 68 |
International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
VII. BLOCK DIAGRAM OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
FIGURE 2: THE BLOCK DIAGRAM OF PROPOSED SYSTEM
VIII. FLOWCHART
Start
Initialization of microcontroller
Initialization of MEMS and water level
sensor
No
Field value >
threshold
value
Yes
| Vol. 03 | Issue 04 | 2017 | 69 |
International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
ALERT is displayed on LCD
Buzzer is activated
Initialization of GSM modem
The message is forwarded to various
registered mobile numbers
Stop
FIGURE 3: FLOWCHART OF EFDAS SYSTEM
Once the system initializes microcontroller, MEMS accelerometer and water level sensor,
microcontroller continuously collects the outputs of all sensors and compares with the programmed threshold
values.
If any of the sensor output crosses the threshold values, the microcontroller quickly initializes GSM as
per the type of disaster i.e. earthquake or flood, and sends the SMS to concerned government authorities and
locals too. Microcontroller also turns on the siren so that people can get alert.
IX. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In this experimental results water level float switches and MEMS sensors are tested with the physical
simulations. For water level detection three different float switches are mounted at three different levels.
FIGURE 4: HARDWARE FOR EFDAS SYSTEM
| Vol. 03 | Issue 04 | 2017 | 70 |
International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
FIGURE 5: WATER LEVEL SENSORS
As the water level varies LCD shows three different levels. For first two water levels system shows
FIGURE 6: RESULTS FOR DIFFERENT WATER LEVELS
For highest level system displays emergency message, turns ON buzzer and also sends the SMS to
authorities
FIGURE 7: RESULTS FOR DETECTION OF HIGH WATER LEVEL
In this design model MEMS sensor is mounted on a mechanical vibration model for simulating
earthquake.
| Vol. 03 | Issue 04 | 2017 | 71 |
International
Journal
Of Advanced Research in Engineering & Management (IJAREM)
ISSN: 2456-2033 || PP. 67-72
FIGURE 8: MECHANICAL VIBRATION MODEL
When the vibrations increases beyond a threshold level, buzzer is turned ON and SMS is sent to the
programmed mobile numbers.
FIGURE 9: SMS SENT AFTER EARTHQUAKE DETECTION
X. CONCLUSION
The system focuses on monitoring water level & earth vibrations via sensors, & generates alert signal
when water level or level of earth vibrations crosses a threshold. Alert message in the form of SMS will be sent
to concerned authorities through the GSM. It also includes siren to broadcast the messages to the local people,
nearby the river side. The system can also shows status of water level through the LCD display.
Acknowledgements
The Author would like express gratitude to the department of Science and Technology (DST), Science
and Engineering Research Board (SERB), New Delhi, India for financial support. (SERB sanction order number
and date: SB/FTP/PS-030/2013, Date: 21/02/2014) and Dr. A. V. Kadam to partial funding of the project.
REFERENCES
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[5]. https://www.secty-electronics.de/en/projects/overview-about-projects-and-references.html
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